MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

Viewpoint: Yes, catastrophe theory is a major development in mathematics.

Viewpoint: No, catastrophe theory does not represent a major development in mathematics: not only is it a close cousin of chaos theory, but both are products of a twentieth-century intellectual environment that introduced quantum mechanics and other challenges to a traditional "common sense" worldview.

The twentieth century saw the introduction of complexities in ways no previous era could have imagined: complexities in political systems, in art, in lifestyles and social currents, and most of all, in the sciences and mathematics. Leading the movement that increasingly unfolded the complexities at the heart of the universe were quantum mechanics in physics and chemistry, and relativity theory in physics. As for the mathematical expressions of complexity, these were encompassed in a...